This display board was made by myself about 10 years ago.
The resolution is 16 x 50 dot. It can be
drove by 8255 card through PC
parellel port and using Qbasic/Quickbasic program.
The back view is simple too. Using 74ls138 74ls154 to decode the
signal and 74ls04 to drive the each LED. That is only light one y-axis
LED but the x-axis can be light 16 led each time.
Can display in English
and in Chinese sentence depending on the software program.
I remember I almost gave up because it is not simple for both hardware and
software for me when I studied in technical college.